Colleen Orchanian

Jun 10, 2026 by Colleen C Orchanian, in Addiction

Last week I wrote about sustained recovery, when the addict is free from addiction for a sustained time and is growing spiritually and emotionally. I spoke with someone after that episode who said that I had not yet covered the season they are in. They gave me another one - sustained addiction.

Sustained addiction is when you believe the addict will not recover, will not stop, does not see a problem, or cannot stop. You expect them to die with an active addiction. Their health will continue to deteriorate until their body can no longer support them.

It sounds like this could be a place of hopelessness and despair, and that is true. That is possible. Without faith, without God, it would be a terrible life, watching someone you love slowly kill themselves through addiction. You might think it is the end of your own life as well. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Hope, healing, and peace

Instead of despair, desperation, bitterness, and rejection, you could have hope, healing, and peace.

Hope in God's perfect plan. Hope in the promise that God loves all souls, no matter the mess they make of their lives. Hope that God will give you moments of respite when you most need them. Hope that you can carry this cross with the help of Jesus.

God offers you healing. We have many wounds from loving an addict. We don't have to bury our feelings or ignore our pain. We can reject the lie that we have failed because they have not overcome the addiction. We can heal from the mistakes we made with the addict. We can embrace the love God has for us, His beloved son or daughter. We can allow ourselves to be vulnerable, imperfect, and broken. That is the path to healing.

God wants to give us His peace. Not the peace of the world, because that isn't real. We have the peace of God when we surrender everything to Him. We detach ourselves from our wants, our needs, our priorities, our plans. We decide to accept whatever He has for us, whatever life brings. Because we know that this cross, this very heavy cross, is an instrument of salvation for us and for those we love. God works all things for good, even addiction. We can come to believe that, even when it doesn't seem to make sense. That is the peace God wants to give us.

This is not about putting on rose-colored glasses and saying everything is fine when it's not. That isn't honest, and honesty is an important virtue in the addiction journey.

We have to acknowledge reality. What is our reality?

Maybe…

• The one I love will not recover. This disease is fatal. And I don't like that fact.

• I have anger, bitterness, and resentment about what addiction has done to our family.

• I have been hurt to the core by the things he or she has said or done to me.

• I am afraid to let the pain out and lose control.

• I feel like a failure because I tried to fix them and could not.

• I don't have compassion for them and their struggle. I don't want to know how hard it is for them.

• I am imperfect. Sometimes I have the same faults they do, only less severe. But it's the same fault.

• I think God has failed me, but I am afraid to say that.

• I think I have to do everything perfectly, and it's stressing me out. But that's not true. Some things can be left undone.

• I am so sad. I don't want to be sad anymore. The sadness is overwhelming.

Some of those statements may represent your current reality, your feelings, and your beliefs. Others not so much. And surely there are more feelings and beliefs that you are carrying. We start here by acknowledging what is happening in our head and in our heart. The good and the bad. Then what?

First, we try to live the Serenity Prayer. It offers a way of seeing our situation in a way that allows us to find peace in the storm. Here it is in its full version:

God, give me the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will;

So that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.

In order to apply this prayer, we have to process our feelings. We can do that by journaling or by sharing with others, or a combination. Let's look at each of those options:

Journaling

This is when we write our thoughts, frustrations, fears, joys, and prayers. Consider it a diary between you and God, not something you share with others. That way you can write anything. One benefit of this is that when you see something in writing, you can recognize a lie more easily. For example, I believe I have to get the house completely cleaned before I go on vacation. It must be done, even if it takes all night. That belief is false. I may want the house cleaned, but it is not a need. Let's look at one more common with an addictive relationship. If they loved me, they would quit. The truth is that love is not enough for someone to overcome an addiction. When we write down our thoughts and beliefs, it's easier to recognize and reject the lies that are affecting our peace.

Sharing with others

Here you have many options. The most obvious are Al-Anon or Catholics in Recovery. These are groups that help people understand addiction and make decisions to cope with the unique struggles they face in their addiction relationship. These groups meet in person and online.

Another type of small group can work as well if it's the right fit for you. Any kind of group where you are learning to grow closer to God, making spiritual progress in a mutually supportive environment can work. Our parish has a healing support group, a women's group, a men's group, a prayer group, and many informal small groups that gather regularly to share life. These groups can help you grow if they are spaces where you can be authentic and vulnerable.

Another option is to find a spiritual director. The role of a spiritual director is to help you deepen your prayer life and grow in your relationship with God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The only way to surrender and find the peace of God is to get to know Him better. No matter where you are in your faith, there's more. A spiritual director can help you grow and learn how to carry your cross of addiction with more grace and strength. How do you find one? Start with your pastor or parish office. Ask if there is someone in the parish and if not, can they recommend someone? Ask your friends if they have one. Pray that God will bring the right director to you.

Maybe it's not possible to have a spiritual director for some reason. Do you have a wise friend? Not just smart intellectually, but wise in the ways of God. Ask them out for coffee and share your struggles, not so they can give you advice about the addiction, but so they can help you find peace.

Unhelpful people

Choosing who to share with is important. They don't need experience with addiction to be helpful. That could be a benefit or a drawback, depending on the person. Here are some things to avoid:

Problem solvers/advice givers/fixers: You don't need someone to fix your problems or tell you what to do. They can't fix this any more than you can. The focus should be on your spiritual life, even though you may share things about the cross of addiction.

Spiritual bypassers. These are people who may be well-meaning but are unhelpful because they speak in clichés. God's got this. Just trust God. God won't give you more than you can handle. I'll pray for you. Often these people are not comfortable with vulnerable sharing and, knowing they can't fix it, cut the conversation short. In a way, they are dismissing your feelings. Instead, you want someone who can acknowledge those feelings without needing to make everything better for you.

Gossips/Judges/Critics: These people will criticize the addict. (That's not helpful.) Or criticize you (you're enabling their behavior. You need to stop that.) They might not hold your conversations in confidence, and you later hear from someone else what you expected to stay private.

Those are some people problems we face. Choose wisely those with whom you entrust your heart and cross. There is someone God has put in your life as your Simon of Cyrene. That is the man who helped Jesus carry His cross. Who is your Simon? Ask God to show you.

When you are living in sustained addiction, you can have peace. You can live the Serenity Prayer. You can surrender to God in a deeper way. You can pursue your own healing, and you should.

If you embrace this season, surrendering all to God, you can have honest conversations with the addict about their addiction. You no longer have to pretend that they will get clean and sober. They don't have to lie anymore about when they indulge. You don't nag them anymore, which reduces the stress in the relationship. You can have a healthy conversation about their sustained addiction without blaming or judgement on either side. That stuff is transformational. And you can have it even in sustained addiction.

There will be times when God will give you a respite, a break from the stress and burden of the cross. It may be a vacation with a friend or a weekend spiritual retreat alone. When you have something like that, embrace it. Enjoy it. Fight the urge to wonder when the other shoe will fall or resent that you don't have enough respite days like that. Live in the moment and enjoy the peace. God wants to fill your spiritual gas tank. Let him.

Virtue of Surrender

The last thought is the virtue to pursue here. Surrender. It's not a traditional virtue, but maybe the closest is detachment. So I'll end with a prayer by St. Ignatius for perfect detachment:

Grant, O Lord, that my heart may neither desire nor seek anything but what is necessary for the fulfilment of Thy Holy Will. May health or sickness, riches or poverty, honours or contempt, humiliations, leave my soul in that state of perfect detachment to which I desire to attain for Thy greater honour and Thy greater glory.

Questions for prayer

1. To what degree have I surrendered all to God regarding the addiction of one I love? Where am I holding back?

2. Who can help me process my feelings and needs so that I can find the peace I desire and God desires for me?

 

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